Eggs and Greens and a House to Myself

My husband and a friend are off on an overnight backpacking excursion in the Desolation Wilderness, and I have the house to myself. And I'll say, as much as I love my husband, I do treasure these weekends alone. I tend to get a lot done while he's away, and this weekend, I have the added bonus of a visit from a dear friend who's currently studying at the Yale School of Drama (which, while very exciting, is very far away from me!). I don't know what it is about having the place to myself...I'm sure there's some psychological reasoning around wanting to impress my husband with the awesome work I've done, or maybe I just focus better when I have full control over the space. Either way, I look at this weekend as an opportunity to get a lot done, and I'm going to fight the lure of the sofa and the rom com and make an impact on the house, Weekend Warrior style.

Some before shots, for posterity.

Last week, I set a lofty goal for myself: I am going to finish the guest room by the end of the month.

Why now? As of August 1, we'll have lived here for two years. Our office/guest room has never been fully functional, serving more as a storage facility than a usable room, and dang it if I'm going to hit our two-year anniversary in this house with an unusable second bedroom! Also, I have this and next weekend almost entirely void of plans, which is highly rare these days. Once mid-July and August hit, we have work trips and camping trips and weddings and just all sorts of things that will interfere with a weekend of housework. So it's now or never.

Anyway, Will's desk is in there, but he's recently transitioned to a laptop, so while we'll keep the small desk in there for the few times when we want to work at a desk (and the printer will live in there as well), the room will primarily serve as a guest room. My wonderful friend Melissa is a professional designer, and donated a few hours of her time to help me figure out how to use this tiny room (it's 11' 7" x  7' 9", less than 80 sq ft). That was in December. Of 2011. It's just embarrassing at this point.

BUT BUT BUT!

Check out that floor. You can see it!
You definitely couldn't see it a few hours ago.
This room is hard to photograph,
especially with an iPhone.

Yesterday, I ordered the sofabed we picked out, as well as a new shelf (sorry, Melissa, I'm taking a slight detour from our original plans) to replace the file cabinets we don't need. IKEA should be delivering them in about a week.

And this morning, while the guys were sorting through their gear, I organized the storage closet off our dining room, just for kicks.
(<-- photo)

All this is to say that I've started off on the right foot.

And as a little reward for my morning of good work (I started the laundry too - I'm on a roll!), I made some eggs and greens, inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Baked Eggs and Hollandaise (from her cookbook, so I can't link to the original recipe).

I used the greens I mentioned in yesterday's post, and cracked two eggs on top. Baked for just under 20 minutes at 375, and topped with some Cougar Gold and Tabasco. I slightly overcooked the eggs, but it's still quite good. So excuse me, I have to go devour this now. Wish me luck with the whole productivity thing :)

Greens, glorious greens

I'm not winning any awards for my food photography,
but it's damn tasty, and that's all that matters.

Are you getting anything awesome done this weekend? Have any projects in the works?